The origins of the word Easter are a bit uncertain. According to The Venerable Bede (672-735 AD), a Christian scholar, Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre), who was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxons.

The Teutonic goddess of fertility was known by such names as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos, and her name came from an old word for spring: eastre.

An alternative theory is that Easter comes from the German word Ostern.

Many cultures celebrate the beginning of spring with various festivals. The Christian festival of Easter was probably grafted onto old pagan spring festivities, and things like Easter eggs and Easter bunnies are symbols of new life and fertility which perhaps date back to pagan times.

There’s more information about the origins of Easter at:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter.htm

Happy Easter to those you who celebrate it.

As I mentioned the other day, they count in twenties in Manx Gaelic. Today I discovered that this system can be used for counting up to 199. For example, 100 is quig feed (five twenties) or keead (hundred), 120 = shey feed (six twenties) or keead as feed (hundred and twenty), and 199 = nuy feed as nuy-jeig (nine twenties and nineteen) or keead as kiare feed as nuy-jeig (hundred and four twenties and ninety).

This system is known as the vigesimal or base-20 counting system. The word vigesimal comes from the Latin vīgēsimus, which is a variant of vīcēsimus (twentieth) and influenced by viginti (twenty). The vigesimal system is also used in the other Celtic languages and in a number of other languages, at least to some extent.

There are vigesimal and decimal systems in Scottish Gaelic, though the decimal system in not widely used. The vigesimal system is rarely used in Irish, with the except of daichead (forty), a version of dhá fhichid (two twenties).

In Welsh both vigesimal and decimal systems are used, though the vigesimal system is more popular in north Wales. The number from 16-19 in the Welsh vigesimal system are unusual: 16 = un ar bymtheg (one on fifteen), 17 = dau ar bymtheg (two on fifteen), 18 = deunaw (two nines), and 19 = pedwar ar bymtheg (four on fifteen).

The Celtic languages that were once spoken in many parts of Britain used the vigesimal system. The so-called sheep-scoring numbers are remnants of these languages. They were related to Welsh and the numbers from 15-19 have more or less the same structure as those in Welsh. There are many versions of these numbers – here’s one from Keswick in Cumbria: yan (1), tyan (2), tethera (3), pethera (4), pimp (5), sethera (6), lethera (7), hovera (8), dovera (9), dick (10), yanadick (11), tanadick (12), tetheradick (13), petheradick (14), bumfit (15), yanabumfit (16), tanabumfit (17), tetherabumfit (18), petherabumfit (19), jiggit (20).

For more details see my sheep-scoring numbers page on Omniglot.

Other languages that used the vigesimal system include Cornish, Breton, Basque, Albanian, Georgian, Ainu, Mayan, Nahuatl, and to a limited extent in Danish and French.

Phrases such as ‘three score years and ten’ and ‘four score and seven’ demonstrate that the vigesimal system was once used in English. The word score comes from the Old English word scora and is related to the Old Norse word skor, which means notch, tally or twenty.

For more information on the vigesimal system, see: Wikipedia.

Each of us constructs our own unique version of the world in our minds, but we don’t necessarily notice everything, at least consciously. The things we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell evoke memories, associations and various trains of thought.

When you learn a foreign language, you are effectively creating a new version of the world in your mind. Everything will have a different name, though it takes a long time to learn all those names and there are likely to be gaps in your vocabulary. One way to overcome this problem is to learn how to describe the things for which you don’t know the words. Another way is to focus on particular subjects and to learn as many of the relevant words as you can. To test your new vocabulary, you could try explaining the subject to someone else and/or writing about it.

It’s been suggested that I change all references on Omniglot to AD and BC to CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era). The usage of AD/BC is apparently offensive to some non-Christians. Usage of CE/BCE seems to be increasing, at least in some places.

While the Common Era system makes no mention of Christianity, it also starts counting at the supposed birth of Jesus Christ, though nobody is quite sure exactly when that happened.

There’s some background info on Wikipedia

An alternative solution to this problem is discussed at www.pinyin.info – the author proposes calling the current millenium the International Era (I.E.) – an interesting idea, I think.

What do you think? Are similiar things going on in other languages?